Anon said: [Spoilers for non-manga readers] opinion on Baku's hero name?
Very Bakugou, honestly don’t mind it at all! Mostly just surprised it’s, like, legal in the bnha universe for heroes to call themselves stuff like explodo-kills (and also that there isn’t a character limit for hero names??) but that Bakugou would stick with it is pretty damn in character for him so I like it xD still, I’ll probably just call him Dynamight if I’ll ever need to use his hero name lmao
Anon said: not to be the most romantic sap but uh just a kiss by lady a is killin me
Nothing sappy about letting romantic songs get to you!!!! I say, as I’m constantly crying over romantic songs so this mindset benefits me as well lol
Anon said: i may or may not have stumbled across some of your older kiribaku art, the stuff with akane, and she's the best child oc tbh. i actually like her and i tend to not be a fan of child ocs but she's just the cutest darn thing 🥰
I’m so glad you like her!!!!! She was a lot of fun, what a good gremlin ;;;
Anon said: uve heard of dragon!kiri w his hair spikes up, now get ready for dragon!kiri w his hair dowm lookin like the softest boy
AW HECK I think I’ve drawn him in the past, actually!!!! Spike-haired Kiri will forever be my fav Kiri, but there’s just something about hair down Kiri isn’t it!! What a cute boy ;;;; all sharp edges and soft curves, what a lovely sight
Anon said: can i just say your itafushi art is so cute? these two already make me feel and then your art just (つω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥`)
THANK YOU SO MUCH I really need to draw them more, don’t I! goge kinda monopolized my attention there, but the way itafushi makes me feel..........boy the way they make me feel ;;;;
Anon said: good day, poké au thought: 12 y/o bakugo somehow catches a dreepy as like his 2nd pokemon and never questions it
WHY NOT WHY NOT I have a whole team in my mind for the boy tbh but dreepy is so cute ;;;; and anyway, I like my poke!bakugou with as many dragon types as he could possibly get his hands on hahaha
Anon said: Please know that, amongst other factors, you were one of the maon reasons I stsrted Jujutsu Kaisen two days ago and there isnothing more to say except thank you and I'm absolutely in debt with you for that, thank you so much 😍
I’m so so SO glad you’re liking it!!!!!! It can get kinda heavy but it’s such a great story.... honestly I’d been wanting to start it since I saw the first pv for the anime all the way back last year but I was like, you know it’s a mappa anime! so I wanted to watch the anime as a new thing, cause I love mappa, but three episodes in I couldn’t hold back and just binged it. It’s kind of story that just makes you wanna drink it all in one go, isn’t it? so good so good
Anon said: makeup artist kirishima and model bakugo or makeup artist bakugo and model kirishima? :0c
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm can’t say I see either of them much into fashion tbh, but if I had to pick probably model Kiri and artist Baku? I just don’t think Baku would be able to stay still enough to get photographed, and he wouldn’t like the photographer bossing him around anyway, and catwalks would be impossible for him to stomach imho, he’s too restless for it! At least it’s the way I see it haha
Anon said: fdgdhdkfhdafs i had a thought, what if bakugo prefers dogs and kirishima prefers cats and when they meet each other and become friends it's like, "oh." because they have some striking similarities to their fave animals
That’s been my headcanon for a while now, actually!! I think for me it came from two characters in a manga I like that are a lot like a dog and a cat but have inverted fav animals and when I read about that I was like “oh, right, makes sense since they like each other” and then my brain turned it krbk because when does it not lmao
Anon said: your art is the soothing balm to my soul recently, thank you for posting so much beautiful content. i hope you have a lovely week. ♡
sob thank you so much, I’m glad my doodling can help you feel better ;; <3
Anon said: Friendly reminder anon from last time: that post I left last time I had only eaten 7 gingersnaps that day and hadn’t drank any water. So that encouraged me to actually self care. Thank you.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well I hope you’re taking care of yourself today too! And as fair trade, I’ll do the same myself! <3
Anon said: Hi! I'm an artist and I'm thinking of making a sideblog for my art. Do you have any tips?
Ah man, I’m sorry but I’m not the best person to ask this to! I started this sideblog cause I had too many followers on my main and I didn’t want my stuff to be seen by that many people at first, so whatever I did probably isn’t what you’re looking for :( but really there isn’t much to it, just post whatever you like to draw, tag it as best as you can (but remember that only the first five tags appear in the search page) and be patient, since whatever you do at first you won’t get much attention anyway - the only real advice I can give is to draw something that makes you happy and that you’d draw anyway even if no one were to see it, it’ll make keep posting despite a possible lack of activity a lot easier!
Anon said: Your goge art🥺🥺
I just love them so much ( TT’’’TT)9
Anon said: how the fuck have i not been following you? I remember seeing your bakushima art in the bnha tag and always thinking it's so cute. Now you're into JJK too??? and the satosugu art??? fuckin, diabetes incarnate. I love it. I love you. Your art 10/10. I'm tired lmao.
WELL thank you for the follow!! And for thinking my stuff is cute!!!!! I do my best with that, I want all the soft things for my favs 😌
Anon said: Are you gonna draw Gojou/Getou comic?? 👉🏻👈🏻 WOULD LOVE TO READ IT
you mean an actual doujin? I don’t think I will, sorry! I’m really no good at long projects orz but thank you so much for wishing to read something like that from me!!! ;A;
Anon said: Hello! YOUR ART IS SO FREAKING GORGEOUSSSS!!! I love them so much!! If I may ask you one question. Between Getou amd Gojou, who do you see as top/bottom? Just curious
THANK YOU!!!!! And I honestly don’t care as long as they’re happy and together!!! please let them be happy and together 🙏🙏🙏
Anon said: i want you to know!!! i followed you for your kiribaku art but!!! i love your art so much that idc what you post because it's all just!!!! incredible and wonderful and stunning!!!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!! this means a lot to me so seriously thank you so much!!!!
Anon said: d'you think bakugo has like headaches or migraines after training or battles because of how loud his quirk is? like, i listen to music slightly too loud and my head is sending me to hell. (unless you go with the hoh hc which is also 👌)
I like to think Baku’s body is attuned enough to his own quirk that he wouldn’t get drawbacks of the kind tbh, though that wouldn’t be a bad thought for when he just starts to increase the output/width and strength of his explosions............ well, I myself suffer from chronic headaches and migraines so I’m always up for projecting on my favs ngl lmao
Anon said: so like... dragon kirishima's eyes glow right? like, if we equate his dragon-ness to unbreakable his eyes glow? they also glow when he's half shifted? honestly i just live glowing eyes
Oh hell yeah I’m all for that, definitely definitely, I love glowing eyes with my whole heart and Kiri’s eyes in unbreakable are just so!!!!!! NGH *chef kiss* the more of unbreakable there is in his dragon form the happier I am ( TT^TT)9
Anon said: me, scrolling through your blog: ah shit guess im gonna have to start watching jjk
!!!!! hope it won’t hurt you too much, anon!!
Anon said: dragon!kiri and bakugo having a tug-of-war match over a piece of meat. both have it in their mouths. both are determined to win.
Kiri is turned into his dragon form and Baku still wins, hell yeah
Anon said: your satosugu is top tier!! it's hard to find stuff for them that isn't straight up angst so your art has been super cool and also very very cute!! (tho if you went with angst, it wouldn't be a bad thing obviously)
AH I’m so happy to hear you like them!!!! but also happy you wouldn’t mind angst, as I do like them the best happy and soft but my brain, my brain has been throwing sads my way for a while now 👀 I got some ideas
Anon said: What program/device do you use??
Easy Paint Tool SAI and a wacom intuos!! Though I got myself an ipad+procreate just yesterday and I’ve been messing around with it, let’s see how that one goes!
Anon said: *inahles* i am simping for mohawk man please tell me everything about your ocs immediately or i will detonate
THANK YOU FOR LIKING HIM HE’S CALLED DAVIDE Dav for short, he’s a cat of a man and a music instrument enthusiast (mostly string ones, but he’s very good with the piano as well) - he works in a music instruments store, and he’s a uni student majoring in philosphy! He doesn’t like bothersome things, he isn’t very good at taking anything seriously or putting effort in stuff, but he’s very chill to spend time with and generally a nice chat both if you want mindless thoughts or deep conversations (he’s a philosophy major after all). He can’t sing for shit, he’s got two cats (tago and schelly!), and he just wants a quiet life to laze around but all his friends are hurricanes in human bodies, but then again, he picked them himself so he can’t complain. He’s a good boy!! I’m planning a comic for him and his boy Ross >:]
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Hi hello I hope you're doing well and getting read to sn00ze soon, STS! Saturday! Yes! Cause you're an artist and a writer, I was wondering how much the two mediums bleed into each other? Does drawing something out help you visualise it better, or do they not really interact much at all?
hello hi hey there and happy storyteller saturday :D thank you for the question!! I hope ur having a cool day B)
and even though you sent this yesterday you telling me to sn00ze is equally applicable today as it is almost every day of the week so................ yep, I’ll be sure to get onto that at some point. you’re probably going to make a >:c face at me for answering this at 3:06am
anyway! this is an interesting question! and a good one! unfortunately it may not have a very interesting answer?
my initial response was gonna be that they don’t really bleed into each other at all, but then........ nah, they kinda do
(and then about halfway through typing this draft I was like But What About Undertow, and my response became “oh yeah they definitely do”, but I’ll get to that in a bit)
but yeah! I think my writing definitely influences my art! both in the sense that I tend to draw mostly story stuff, ‘cause I like my stories and drawing is fun, but also in terms of like....... inspiration! usually I have a pretty good image of stuff in my head already while I’m writing, n sometimes this image will make me go “hell yeah I vibe with this I wanna draw it”, but the art itself generally turns out nothing like what I envision and usually takes a life of its own ‘cause I’ll just end up drawing whatever looks cool hahahaha
so I get some neat experiments and doodles and weirdness in various art pieces that definitely stemmed from story daydreams, but probably aren’t super related to the story itself in the end :P y’all don’t see much of this stuff ‘cause I mostly just post character drawings lmao
(this is bc I’m most confident with character drawings, and I will fistfight Drawing Backgrounds And Scenes in a wendy’s parking lot any day of the week)
but kinda hopping back up for a sec, one example that IS related to the story is like
drawings I’ve done that are centred in ATDAO’s unreality aren’t actually a super good representation of what the unreality is actually like? or I mean. they could be. they can be! but the drawings are centred around very literal concrete representations of glitchy weirdness
whereas in the story itself (at least to start with) there’s much more a focus on the general looming Hey Something Is Horribly Wrong vibes and, like, the unravelling and bleeding together of senses, the way the narration changes (ie the way your own thought processes slowly start becoming completely foreign to you), n just........ glitchy weirdness, but not glitchy weirdness that you can visually represent, glitchy weirdness that is canonically in the category “you can experience this and have no way to process it because a human mind is not equipped to translate it and your senses have no way of taking it in”
n then I bring the body horror in full force but that’s neither here nor there
existential terror and uncanny valley vibes r hard to draw, y’know? so the drawings mostly just wind up as me having fun with the aesthetic hahaha
but yeah, art stuff stems from story daydreams, it’s very rare that story stuff will stem from art daydreams
character drawings were something I started doing just ‘cause I liked my characters and I was vibin, but they ended up being the one exception in that they DO tend to actively inspire the decisions I make in the story itself, unlike my other art
written descriptions of people are a weak point for me, generally I’ll kinda know at least the key aspects of what folks look like, but the descriptions I come up with on page are always frustratingly vague............. n drawing them out helps me fill in the blanks and give my descriptions a bit more life and personality IMO, ‘cause I mean
there’s little things about people’s appearances that are pretty personal, little quirks or habits they have, etc, that I wouldn’t think of in writing, whereas in art they just crop up naturally
and also sometimes I’ll write a description of a character or have an image of them in my head and I’ll be like Yeah This Is Them but then when I draw them my hands will just make their own decisions
and whatever the hands create is Law and Official Canon as far as I’m concerned, I will always trust the hands over my initial plans when it comes to characters, and they have not failed me so far
and now that I’ve gone on a whole spiel about how (outside of helping me pin down character details) creating art isn’t generally something that inspires a lot of story development or daydreams, it’s time for me to completely contradict that because, like I said earlier: Undertow
this is a WIP that came into existence purely from art inspiration! basically I came up with Aster’s design on the fly because someone was like “it’s genderqueer pride day” and I was like Oh Sick Time To Make A New Genderqueer OC
most of the characters in Undertow were drawn and designed long before I had any clue who they were or what their deal was. the entire premise of Aster as a character was born within like two hours from one silly doodle. then I was like “BUT WHAT IF SHE HAD FRIENDS” so I drew some friends, who ended up being Kit and Meg. n their relationships with each other and the kind of story in which they find themselves all just kind of spiralled out from a series of silly doodles and took on a life of their own :P
I think it’s a different scenario since Undertow exists purely as a vessel for shenanigans and self-indulgent nonsense, so I was feeling a lot less pressure to be grounded and serious, I could just throw things around like “amnesiac clairvoyant delivery driver with an illegal magic crime truck” and “necromancer who doesn’t believe in magic who wants to reanimate a t-rex to honour his dead wife” to see what stuck and I had no need to be like “hm, but is that Realistic, though?”
unrestrained summer fun!
it’s easier for me to let myself daydream in relation to art when there’s none of this pressure, which I think is what separates Undertow from my other projects c:
plus Undertow is the one WIP of mine that I’ve always pictured in a kind of episodic comic format, though I lack the skill set or the patience to pull this off hahaha
as such, most of my development for it comes in the form of messing around with the artistic side of things!! as it should be, I think
anyway that’s enough from me I think, thanks for reading, have a fantastic day, hope you see some cool birds (if you do please tell me about them)
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Revue Starlight 3: Venus Victrix
Wow, Swan Lake is a little different than I remember.
For the previous episode go here!
To go to the start of these posts, go to the Prelude!
Sup y’all, welcome back to theater fight club with system breaking confused lesbians the show! This episode was fuckin SWEET. I’m so happy this is still going strong! So much went down this episode I got excited and posted a theory about the show, check it out if you wanna! I might repeat myself a bit here but I’ll try and keep it to new discussion points. Alrighty, let’s continue.
This post’s title is in latin and it means “Venus the Victorious”! You’ll see why I chose that in a bit! Anyways on with the show!
>The show is here! And it’s BIG AND LOUD!
The episode starts with showing a phrase that has been seen on the girl’s phones when Giraffe comes a calling. The phrase is, “And it shall be bestowed upon you, the Star which you have longed for.” which totally isn’t ominous at all. We then go to a flashback of the previous year’s production of Starlight, Maya and Claudine are the leads. We see them as the goddesses reaching for the star, which yes is the same pink star we’ve been seeing in the underground stage.
*whispering* I’m onto you ya piece of shit star tiara, YOU CAN’T FOOL ME!
The setting of the play and other details are still unclear but we can see from the outfits it seems pretty greek/roman inspired. We see Maya and Claudine dancing and the two of them being separated (with Maya going up and Claudine going down) as it’s pointed out again that the story of the play Starlight doesn’t have a happy ending. “Their dream could never come true.” seems like the final line of the play before it ends (Maya’s character speaks this line). The girls take their bows and we go to the opening sequence.
Sappho wrote this fucking play confirmed, thank u based Sappho.
After the opening we’re in the classroom, Nana offers Hikari banana muffins since Hikari said the previous day she didn’t like jiggly things. Before Hikari gives a response, Mahiru comes into class dragging a very sleepy Karen with her. Mahiru had a very hard time getting Karen to wake up all the way this morning, more than usual (Hikari leaves without them lol). Karen says she had a busy day the day before, Mahiru asks what she was doing but Junna walks in and says Karen should learn to wake up on her own since it’s inconvenient for Mahiru to be on wake up duty all the time. Mahiru says she doesn’t mind. Karen greets Junna calling her Jun-Jun, much to Mahiru’s alarm, and comments on Junna always being early. Junna scolds Karen for being the only one in their class who still comes late and called Karen by her first name which only alarms Mahiru more. They both say they’re exhausted “from yesterday” causing Kill Bill sirens to go off in Mahiru’s mind and Nana asks if something happened between Junna and Karen. Karen says it’s a secret and Junna says it’s none of anyone else’s business. Class then starts.
I’m not gonna lie but this is the best damn screenshot I’ve taken so far.
We then find out Claudine wasn’t in class, much to the surprise of everyone in the room. The teacher hands out the Starlight script and the plans about the festival to the class. We find out that Nana is switching from taking part in the acting to working backstage for the festival, also to her classmate’s surprise. At lunch (Futaba, Kaoruko, Junna, Hikari, Karen, and Mahiru are there) Nana explains that while she liked being an actress she was curious about the inner workings of the theater and wanted to try that. Hikari takes Karen’s banana muffin and leaves, a paper airplane sails past.
Hikari omg stop ignoring Karen, she’s so adorable. Don’t sleep on this gurl!
Mahiru comments that it would be a waste of Nana’s talents if she switched to backstage, then our favorite top dog comes in. Tendou Maya. Maya says that Nana can still put what she knows about performing to use in crafting a stage for others to perform on, the other actresses will be counting on her to create a stage to bring out their full potential. Nana thanks her and expresses she hopes that the show they create is as good as last year’s. She offers Maya a banana muffin which Maya accepts. Kaoruko makes a terrible pun on Nana’s nickname I much show it here:
THIS SHIT IS BANANAS, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Also Futaba looks like she’s heard this joke from her gf 300 times lol.
Anyways, Kaoruko gives a candy bribe to Nana so she’ll get the lead in the Starlight play. Nana can influence that or even chose the roles herself now after all. Futaba scolds Kaoruko for bribing Nana with candy before doing so herself, Junna points out the hypocrisy. A loop of the girlfriend’s giving Nana endless candy ensues. Maya looks off dramatically in the distance.
Only Maya can look so damn dignified while holding a banana muffin.
The girls go back to class talking about auditions (as in actual ones) and Mahiru expresses once again she wants to be the fated couple with Karen. Claudine then comes in and startles Mahiru. Claudine’s reason for not being at morning classes is she was very exhausted and slept in. They tell Claudine about Nana changing over to back stage and Nana shows off her very huge collection of candy she got from Kaoruko and Futaba at lunch. Claudine also gives her candy as a bribe and Karen complains that Claudine was one of the leads last year so why bribe Nana. Claudine says alright then and goes to her seat. Maya says hello to Claudine and we see the paper airplane again, it just got very awkward. Futaba watches this unfold.
The paper airplane hits a Venus de Milo statue and falls to the ground. We follow the girls going through voice lessons and classroom lessons. Mahiru has left this plane of existence and Kaoruko doodles her and Futaba’s names covered in hearts in her notebook. If it wasn’t obvious to you they’re a couple now, I dunno what to tell you. The girls have dance practice and then the school day is over.
In this photo, we see Mahiru has ascended into the 20th dimension.
Mahiru wonders if Karen went home without her and we get a quick answer about where Karen went. She’s in a shed. Tied up and locked in there by Hikari. Wow. Karen is confused how the fuck this happened and why, she tries to get Hikari to talk to her and let her out but nope. Hikari locks Karen in there leaving her the banana muffin from earlier to eat. I’m sure this is fine.
We then go to Junna in her room reading a fuck ton of books about mythical animals, UFOs, and cryptids. And a book on giraffes. She’s trying to figure out what is up with Giraffe and what he is. Nana gives Junna tea and she’s working on a stage script. We see Nana has a lot of candy from her classmates, she popular.
CHECK QILINS JUN-JUN! YOU’RE SO CLOSE!
We go to Claudine still practicing dance in the practice room, she falls down. Futaba comes in and says the floor should be clean if she wants to keep dancing. Meanwhile Mahiru looks for Karen at the dorms, she checks the bathroom and Kaoruko is there taking a bath. Kaoruko invites Mahiru to bath with her cause her girlfriend isn’t there and she’s bored. Back at the practice room Futaba cleans the floor and asks Claudine if something was going on between her and Maya. Instead of responding, Claudine takes Futaba and starts waltzing(I think) with her. Futaba is startled at first but then she’s like “alright I’m game”. Claudine ends up telling her that she feels that even though she is very talented, Maya is more so and therefore beat her during the duel. The two finish waltz and Futaba offers Claudine some candy, Claudine thanks her in french.
Back with Kaoruko and Mahiru, Kaoruko complains about Futaba not being there and teases Mahiru about her huge gay crush on Karen. Kaoruko comments that it’s been pretty odd lately, ever since Hikari came to town. Back with Claudine and Futaba, Claudine says she’s surprised that Futaba came here because she’s usually with her girlfriend all the time. Futaba answers with saying while Kaoruko is special to her and she wants to support and protect her, she has her own ambitions beyond just being in a supporting role too. Everyone’s cell phone rings, it’s audition duel time!
We are back with Hikari, according to her phone she has no one to fight today. Karen sneaks out of the window at the back of the shed and books it. Hikari sees her running off and looks very panicked. She frantically sprints after Karen, trying to stop her from going into the elevator therefore her duel. Karen says she has to go and she’ll be back when she wins, she goes down. Hikari is too late. Hikari expression becomes determined and she runs back to get a crowbar.
We go to Maya in her room, she’s looking at the Starlight script by a photo of her and her classmates after they did the play the year prior. Seems like Maya is fond of this event too considering she kept the flower hairpin she wore during the show. Birds are seen in her room too btw. We zoom into Claudine in the photo and go to a flashback to the show again. Maya approaches Claudine, smiling at her, and holds out her hand. Claudine moves close to Maya’s face and whispers in her ear, “I haven’t lost”. We go back to Maya in the present, we see her phone with the notice for the duels. Maya flips her hair and it’s show time!
And at this very moment, Tendou Maya realized she was gay.
After Karen transforms the curtains rise, Karen introduces herself and then Maya introduces herself while descending on the back of a swan prop. Karen isn’t intimidated by Maya being her opponent. Meanwhile Hikari is trying to break the elevator door down with a crowbar, she smashes a light on the elevator ceiling on accident and the doors open revealing stairs going down to the audition duels. Back on stage, Giraffe gives us the name of this fight. The Revue of Pride. The duel begins.
The two girls clash for a bit before Maya locks swords with Karen and asks why she was here. Karen tells her she’s here to become a star with Hikari, who we see running down long ass stairs, judging by Maya’s expression she doesn’t seem to like what Karen has said. We then see briefly that at the same time this duel is happening, Futaba and Claudine are dueling. Maya recites lines from the Starlight play and says “It’s an exchange. ” She then shuts the lights off and asks Karen what she has offer in exchange for being a star. Maya activates her jewel, which is on the very bottom of the hilt of her sword, and the stage starts rearranging itself. Maya has control of the stage now. Maya is at the top of dove stairs and starts singing. Smoke and a golden dove spring up behind her lighting up the stage again. The revue resumes. The fight is intercut sometimes with Hikari running to stop the duel. Maya tells Karen that there can only be one top star, that’s what everyone is fighting and struggling for after all. We get a quick look at all the girl’s jewels that are on their weapons, we saw Futaba’s earlier.
Maya then, starts talking about Claudine. She says Claudine has offered and given up everything and that Claudine has the noble determination to challenge a star. The fight picks up again, they sword fight for awhile before Maya knocks Karen to the stairs which she turns into a slide and Karen slides down smack into a huge swan prop. Karen looks up towards Maya who is at the very top of the stairs and says she can’t even begin to reach her. Hikari bursts into the theater and she’s suddenly outside (trippy). We are shown it’s raining outside. Karen races up the stairs to clash with Maya.
We then are shown Claudine declaring she hasn’t lost and Maya declares “Even alone, I am a star!” They win their fights at the same time. Maya declares position zero, the curtain falls and a single spotlight shines on her. Karen has dropped to her knees on the stairs and Maya says, “Only one star can shine at the top.”
We go back to Claudine and Futaba’s duel, Claudine is the winner. However the two take the results very well, Claudine helps Futaba up. We hear Maya talking about how passionate Claudine is again before we go to the credits.
After the credits we see the rankings board by Giraffe and find out where everyone is ranked, Karen is in 9th place. Then we get Hikari and Karen standing in the rain, Hikari has been crying. Karen, looking like she’s in shock, talks about her not being good enough to win or even compete in these wild auditions and says her head is spinning. Hikari slaps Karen in the face and calls her an idiot. We get this shot and the episode ends.
I can’t believe Umi slapped Honoka...wait wrong show.
>Goddesses, lesbians, and stairs. Oh my!
-Something that took me back was the amount of goddess symbolism in this episode which lead me to realize that it had been there the whole time, this ep just made it more obvious. And the really interesting thing it’s two goddesses in particular that have their symbols everywhere, Aphrodite/Venus and Inanna (aka Istar). I talk about this extensively in the post I linked at top but I’ll put a shorter version here. These goddesses are very closely entwined with each other, Aphrodite/Venus is, a descendant of sorts, of Inanna. The funny thing about mythology, other cultures often take ideas or gods from older/different cultures and adapt them as their own. This is the most obvious with the Romans taking the Greek gods as their own. The Sumerian culture and Greek culture likely clashed thanks to trading and the Bronze Age. The two cultures met and exchanged ideas so incorporating the ideas into their mythology would easily occur.
Aphrodite the love goddess is likely based off of Inanna the love goddess (and farther back the goddess Astarte), and even more so the planet Venus was thought to be ruled by Inanna. The two goddesses have shared symbols and domains. Doves are symbols of both goddesses and they are both love, sexuality, desire, and passion goddesses. And Inanna is a war and justice goddess, it turns out in some cultures Aphrodite/Venus was a war goddess too. Both goddesses also went to the underworld to rescue their loved ones, Inanna went to save her husband Dumuzid (aka Tammuz) while Aphrodite went to save her lover Adonis. It’s really cool, these goddesses could be very relevant to the show for sure.
--I’m also gonna add, while there are many myths about gods or humans going to the land of the dead to save someone they loved (ex: Orpheus and Eurydice, Izanagi and Izanami, Isis and Osiris), the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis is thought by modern scholars to be derived from Inanna and Dumuzid’s story specifically. That’s fascinating! Granted, many of these tales don’t have happy endings....Oh dear, have mercy Revue Starlight! ono
-Let’s take a look at Aphrodite/Venus, her symbols are mostly around Maya. Before her duel Maya is seen next to the Venus de Milo statue and reflecting its pose, we see several white birds in her room and on her desk. During the duel birds fucking popup everywhere, swans are a symbol of Aphrodite and Maya descends from the ceiling riding one, there is ancient art of Aphrodite doing just that. Maya chucks Karen into a huge swan at the bottom of the stairs, there's also a curled up swan right here before Maya opens up the stage. The smaller birds on the stairs and one as a gold statue could indicate two different bird symbols, either sparrows or doves. I’m leaning towards doves since we see white birds earlier in Maya’s room.
Aphrodite/Venus is also associated with water since she was born rising out of the sea, there is a fountain by the golden dove during the duel. Speaking of gold, Ode to Aphrodite is the only full poem that Sappho wrote that survives to this day. The word “Chryse” in Greek means golden and it’s used in the poem to describe the goddess. The dove on the stage is golden, also Sappho is a very famous lesbian and this show is gay so. Yes. Anyways.
The planet Venus is a star in the sky, in fact it’s other name is the Morning Star. You might find that sounds familiar and know there's a being whose name in latin means just that, and that being is Lucifer the fallen angel. So you could say he is a fallen star. Oh...let’s hope that doesn’t mean anything bad will happen to Maya. *nervous laughter*
--Side note: Maya’s stage was greek/roman looking again. And had STAIRS. Apparently stairs are a staple in this type of theater lol.
-As for Inanna, her symbol seems to be around Karen. Inanna’s presence isn’t as overt as Aphrodite/Venus but the symbol that is here is one of her primary symbols, the Star of Inanna. Also known as the Star of Ishtar or the Star of Venus, any depictions of Inanna is accompanied by this eight pointed star. Where is the star you ask? It’s in the jewel on Karen’s sword! And no the circle isn’t a shine on it, it’s dark in this shot and I’ve checked other screenshots and the circle is still there. In the screenshot I linked I counted seven points on the star but I might have been unable to see the eighth one due to the angle, however even if there are only seven the symbol greatly resembles the star.
Additionally, one of the most famous myths Inanna is in is her going to the underworld to rescue her husband. In the myth she has to strip off her clothing to get through the seven gates of the underworld (in Sumerian mythology the underworld is called Kur) but gains her clothes back when she leaves. Karen descended into an underground theater and falls below to rescue her love Hikari, and she also loses her clothes and gets new clothes. That’s about it for Inanna right now, let’s keep a lookout for lions too cause that is Inanna’s other primary symbol.
-Whoever designed the school campus really loves the Venus de Milo, it’s EVERYWHERE. This is really obvious in this episode, I counted a total of seven appearances. So Aphrodite has had quite a presence at the school since the start of this show. What it means is a little unclear for now, but the statue for sure ties into the presence of the goddess in this show.
-Ok so. I think I misjudged Maya, I guess I had Touga Kiryuu on the brain while seeing her. Before this episode we didn’t really spend time with her and saw her through the eyes of others, and the person she’s around the most is Claudine. She sees Maya as someone to beat therefore she would see anything Maya does as a challenge or Claudine thinks Maya is looking down on her and because we are following her POV we start to think the same. This is the power of perspective everyone! So this episode we get to see things from Maya’s perspective and we learn that she doesn’t look down on Claudine, quite the opposite in fact, she really respects her. And Maya has a hugeeee lesbian crush on her!
Like, I’m so mad at not noticing but I rewatched the previous episodes with this in mind and yeah. Yeah Maya is in love. It seems to me that how she smiles at Claudine is different than if she smiles at anyone else, when we saw them dancing in the previous two episodes her smiling comes across as smug on the first viewing but no, that’s not what’s happening. Maya just loves dancing with her that much.
There is a part in episode two where while Claudine is practicing after school Maya turns the lights on in the practice room and walks away. At the time you think like Claudine and you think Maya is being condescending but looking back on it I think Maya was legit thinking she was being nice and helping her out. She knows Claudine practices a lot therefore will be there after dark so she turns on the lights for her so Claudine can still practice even if it does gets dark. Maya was thinking, “She’s so passionate to be practicing this late! I should turn the lights on so she doesn’t have to stop and do so!” *turns lights on* “Aw yes I helped her out, I’m so fucking good at this :D.” and Claudine was thinking “Well fuck you too bitch”.
The moment in the flashback when Claudine whispers in Maya’s ear, the look on her face suggests she’s wondering if Claudine was going to kiss her and it’s quite a WHOA I’M GAY look too. During this episode’s duel she spent a good part of the fight telling Karen how great and passionate Claudine is, and it’s obvious she’s speaking about Claudine cause we cut to her several times during Maya’s speech.
And we learn something interesting from this episode via a quick flashback to the end of Maya and Claudine’s duel. We see after Maya cuts off Claudine’s cape and Claudine starts to fall, Maya catches her. She does no such thing when she beats Karen this episode. As for how Claudine feels, I’m pretty sure she also likes Maya back but she hasn’t really realized that cause she’s too busy thinking “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!” whenever Maya does anything. Also Claudine doesn’t want to be second best, she wants to be first hence she sees Maya as someone to overcome and hasn’t been able to look past that just yet.
This begs the question of why Maya still fights Claudine anyways? Well, the answer is because she wants to be Top Star and since there’s only one Top Star, she has to fight. I think Maya would rather have Claudine stand with her on the same level as her but, that’s not how the system works. The system says there can only be one and Maya likely believes that the system can’t be changed, that’s just how it is and there's nothing that can be done about it. So she’ll fight anyone she has to, even if it’s someone she loves. Besides I think that Maya doesn’t go easy on Claudine because she feels it would be an insult to her to not give Claudine her all. I was wrong in my episode 2 post, Maya didn’t take pleasure in beating Claudine. Instead she simply feels she did what she had to do to keep her high rank, no happiness here. It’s why she looks so serious after fighting Claudine, she did what she felt was needed and claims her place even if it came at the cost of taking down the girl she’s in love with.
I think even fighting Karen was something she rather not do, hell she mostly borrows lines from the Starlight play and then makes a speech about how great her crush is instead of personally insulting Karen like you’d normally see with characters like her. She doesn’t show her dislike of this system because, she’s a performer. She’ll play whatever part she needs to even if it means being an antagonist and you’d never be able to tell. When she wins, she casually takes position zero and says there's only one Top Star. No extra gloating or insults, Maya isn’t here to fuck around or be antagonistic after the show is over.
Maya grew up in the world of the theater and she’s very used to this system, it’s normal for her hence she’d never have the thought to actually change it or even think it could be changed. Maya will end up being beaten last cause she embodies the ways of the system more than anyone, feeling she has to follow it and anyone who thinks like Karen just doesn’t understand this is just how it is. I’m excited to see how Karen changes her mind that’s for sure. I do have a feeling that Claudine will be a factor in her change for sure.
--Also, during the Starlight play we see in the flashback. When the characters that Maya and Claudine are playing are separated, Claudine is on a pillar going down while Maya is on the one going up. This is not only showing that fighting over Top Star is keeping them apart, it also shows if Maya does become Top Star alone they will never be on the same level with each other ever again. Maya goes to the top alone, lonely at the top.
-I’ve noticed the Top Star competition is awfully damaging to the girl’s relationships. It seems like Maya is kinda lonely at the top, being Top Star alienates your peers from you since they see you as above them. Maya is referred to by last name by several of the girls and even with the -sama suffix. Claudine is so consumed by her desire to be Top Star that she misinterprets Maya’s actions as a challenge all the time and it’s probably quite stressful feeling like you always have to one up someone every day. When Futaba and Kaoruko have to fight each other I imagine it might break them up. Mahiru’s fight, when it comes, will probably be filled with strife. This isn’t healthy, and if nothing is changed everyone will be forever fucked up from this experience.
-Remember how I said I was worried there will be Yuri Bait in this show? Good news, there isn’t! I 100% think Futaba and Kaoruko are for sure canon dating. Much like Haruka and Michiru of Sailor Moon, it’s not commented on by the other girls really cause them dating is just a given. Everyone knows they are together and that’s just how it is. They are almost always together and in the prequel manga both of their chapters are titled like they are dating. The titles are “Our first time living together!” and “Our first fight!”, that is language used to describe romantic couples experiencing life together. This episode made it even more obvious with Futaba saying Kaoruko is special to her and how Kaoruko teases Mahiru about her crush on Karen.
So yes, Mahiru is romantically interested in Karen and Karen just doesn’t notice. Maya has a huge lesbian crush on Claudine like I said above, I’m still baffled how I totally missed it cause during the everyday stuff Maya does not hide how much she likes her at all. Hell even during the duel she uses a big speech moment to praise Claudine omg. When dancing with Claudine, Maya’s smiling like this is the best thing in the world. I’m also mildly humored that Claudine is in such denial that she’s attracted to Maya it’s one of the reasons why she focuses solely on one upping her, “I’m NOT staring at her because I think she’s hot or anything I’m CLEARLY just analyzing her dance moves so I can beat her!”. Oh honey.
So, everyone is canon queer I’m very happy that is the case! And anyone who disagrees with that, I will throw a rainbow flag through the computer and it will smack ya in the face. Don’t be that asshole please and thank you. uwu
-Hikari is REALLY freaked out by something. I talked about it in my post I link at the top but basically Hikari’s behavior comes across as someone who desperate and fears something hence she’s trying to keep Karen away and finding out what it is, even jumping to extremes like locking Karen in a shed to do so. Very Homura Akemi. She knows something is wrong with these audition duels, and I look forward to learning what it is. But I’m also terrified to find out what it is, my poor girls. ono
-I know for sure now the jewels on the Stage Girl’s weapons control the stage, notably Karen hasn’t used hers to change the stage in anyway. Maya’s is at the bottom of her sword hilt, tried to see if I could see the symbol in it but no success. The jewel itself isn’t very visible often during the episode, and the others shine too bright to see anything inside them. You can see everyone but Claudine’s jewel in this episode. Futaba’s, Kaoruko’s, Mahiru’s, and Nana’s are the new ones to see in the show. I checked Claudine’s character art and yup you can see her jewel on the blade of her sword. Let’s hope they aren’t soul gems or something like that ahaha.
-The fantastical part of the show is seemingly kept separate from the normal everyday stuff. In fact, this is enforced since the girls are told they can’t speak about it. However the fantastical still lingers, you can see it in the tiara light following the girls literally everywhere. And yes we are supposed to take the stage fights as literal, it’s possible a dream world thing is going on when the duels occur but I strongly think that the girls are literally fighting under the school’s secret stage at night. The elevator existing, Hikari being able to speak to Giraffe during the day, Giraffe being mentioned by the girls are all examples of this being real. There's no evidence to suggest the audition duels are imagined besides them being weird so let’s drop the idea.
-I love how Junna was trying to figure out wtf Giraffe is, I’m glad cause if I was in her shoes I’d be doing the same thing. Look at Qilins Jun-Jun!
-Ah, the girls who dueled are tired the next morning again, especially those who lost. I still think there's something fishy with that!
-On the Starlight robes in the flashback there was a symbol and I couldn’t figure out what it was (if it was anything irl anyways). It looks like a combined sun and moon symbol but yeah I couldn’t find anything in real life that looked exactly like that.
-Now that I think about it, Karen hasn’t once asked Hikari if she is still chasing the same dream they had when they were five. Karen is, just assuming Hikari still wants that. They, really need to sit down and talk. How it is now is damaging their relationship man.
-The Starlight play, from what we know, reminds me of the story behind the Tanabata festival. Connection? Maybe.
-Interestingly, the fight between Futaba and Claudine happened on a very minimally decorated stage. Also their talk and dancing together was very cute I love it.
-Oh btw, here are the Stage Girl rankings we see this episode!
1: Maya
2: Claudine
3: Nana
4: Kaoruko
5: Futaba
6: Mahiru
7: Junna
8: Hikari
9: Karen
>Speculation and bananas
-Nana says she is going to switch to backstage cause she wants to give it a try, but is that all there is to it? I ask this cause Nana is in 3rd fucking place on the rankings board, that’s really fucking high. Why would she give that up? Well, understanding her personality and knowing how much she talks about the play they did last year, I think she doesn’t like being apart of the audition duels. She hates the system and fighting the classmates she cares about, so she is trying to leave. Why she talks about last year’s play is because back then they weren’t doing the audition duels. It was simpler, less competitive and no one was fighting.
I think Nana really wants to go back to that time, so she is trying to pull out and put her life back to normal but. Will the Underground Stage let her go that easily? Will Nana not be tempted to go back anyways? I think, one way or another, Nana will be drawn back. This means that future episodes are not gonna be very fun for Nana, poor thing.
-Every episode that passes the more sad I feel for Mahiru, like gdi the fallout will be badddd. That episode is gonna hurt man.
-This episode we find out that the message Giraffe (or whoever) sends to the girls also tells you if you are dueling and who you are dueling, while Hikari is scrolling on her phone I spot this. It’s pretty hard to read but I am pretty sure it says Starlight Gatherers…..Uh. Ok, that can mean two things. One, gathering means that the messages gather the girls to announce duel things.
Or two, my theory about the girls being targeted for their radiance/starlight is fucking right. They are gathering girls to create starlight or the girls themselves are gathering this starlight without knowing it, like waiting for a flower to bloom. Whoever blooms first wins, and is picked and therefore screwed. Oh shit man.
>*Claps wildly over this show*
This episode was great and this anime is still going strong! I’ve seen the episode 4 preview and it looks like next episode might not have a duel in it, which is fine with me. A breather episode will be fun and we will get to hang out with the girls more! And, of course some nice build up to the next fight and foreshadowing can be done. We got three very wonderful fights so far, so no one be complaining about a breather episode. Be nice to the animators you guys, they obviously work very hard on this show.
Also wow I have a new appreciation for Maya after this episode, good to know everyone is a useless lesbian and I love them.
See you on the stage for episode 4!
Also: This anime isn’t an idol show and people really need to stop saying that pass it on.
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